


a planted seed will grow

by hymns



Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: Animal Death, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-08 23:05:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4324251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hymns/pseuds/hymns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>When they sat back-to-back in the sunflower field, Ruben imagined their spinal cords and brain stems fusing together and becoming one. How glorious it would be, he thought, to share thoughts and feelings on a chemical level.</i>
</p><p>ruben awakes for the first time in the womb of STEM as the world takes shape around his memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a planted seed will grow

**Author's Note:**

> i started this before the DLC came out, so at this point a lot of it isn't accurate. i thought it was a waste to just not post it though, because i actually really enjoyed writing it. this actually goes against my belief that laura is still in a vegetative state and is being held by mobius, but oh well

He wakes from the sound of his own screams, his screams mixed with the screams of a child that cease together as his eyelids open. Everything is black, the sound of silence ringing painfully in his ears.

He realizes he has ears. Arms. Legs. Hands. Feet. Eyes. The awareness of his own body frightens him, makes him sit up and lurch forward, nauseous at the fleshy vessel surrounding his brain.

This body is long gone, stripped away and scrapped and jarred by men in suits. That Jimenez and his men. The thoughts of what was done to his body make him sick with anger, until he realizes the favor that sack of organs gave to him. He no longer needs a vessel, the one he has now is only a front, an illusion. He feels nothing, no temperature, no pain. He pulls at the skin of his hands, rubs his palms into the stone ground (is it stone?) beneath him until they bleed, but he feels not even the blind sensation of his skin making contact with the ground.

Rising to his feet, he considers the possibilities that this world presents him with. A world of his creation, his image inescapable. His aching body now knows rest, and his mind, now the omnipotent of this world.

 

* * *

 

He drags himself through the dark, surrounded by silence and an utter lack of any sensory stimulation. Soon, the ground beneath him begins the change, twigs and pebbles and soil clinging to the soles of his feet. He looks up when he sees a faint glowing, and as his eyes adjust, he is brought to a stop from sheer confusion. His home, if it ever was a home, almost exactly as he remembered it, was standing tall in his line of vision. The foliage was brown and crackling, the fountain dry and caked with moss and stains. He listens to the strained cries of the crows on the steps leading to the door, but as he begins to step forward, he notices his surroundings change yet again in a split second. There's an overbearing light beaming down on him, damp grass, insects crawling on his ankles, and the stalk of a sunflower breaths away from his face. The mansion is nowhere in sight, all that can be seen is sunflowers for miles and miles. He knows that in reality, there were nowhere near this many flowers, but the difference almost puts him at ease.

He lingers in the sunflower field, looking down at the dirt that now covers his feet. He remembered her running through the field when they had first purchased that land, her hair blossoming behind her as she ran until she was out of breath. He would braid her flowing hair, tucking wildflowers into it as she silently read a book in the grass, a soft smile on her face. Other days, Ruben would rest his head in his sister's lap and draw pictures, whether they be of sunflowers, or anatomical diagrams, or portraits of her. It was the one place where he could escape from his father's influence.

She walked in on one of his experiments once. He had caught a stray cat, and it was now laying on the table of the side room of the manor, its black fur matted and damp with blood. She tiptoed closer, undeterred by the stench of blood, peeking over Ruben's shoulder. The cat's head was placed to the side as Ruben picked and prodded at the various tendons and muscles now exposed to him.

Realizing her presence, he tried to cover up the table with his arms, as if the blood staining the cuffs of his dress shirt and drying on his knuckles wasn't a clear indicator of what he had done. Laura only smiled, and asked with a genuine curiosity, "what are you doing?"

He taught her much about biology, both human and animal. He would peel back the skin for her, compare the carcass to anatomical drawings. With a hand on his shoulder, she would whisper what a prodigy he was, how smart he was, and that he needs to feed that hungry mind of his with more knowledge. Even when their parents covered Ruben's diagrams on his bedroom walls with wallpaper, Laura would encourage him, or give him pages of her diary to document his dissections on. When they sat back-to-back in the sunflower field, Ruben imagined their spinal cords and brain stems fusing together and becoming one. How glorious it would be, he thought, to share thoughts and feelings on a chemical level. What if they were to lay in the fields until their bodies surrendered, decay mixing with the soil as the flora begins to grow over and in them?

* * *

 

He does not enter the barn.

* * *

 

As he walks aimlessly, he finds himself at the backyard of the manor itself. With no other reason to wait, he wades through the overgrown weeds to the side of the mansion until he is at the front door, creaking open loudly as if it were in pain.

The manor, empty, save for his own belongings and his own presence. It looks as if it were abandoned for years _—_  paintings hanging crooked, wallpaper peeling, mold and dust collecting in any pockets they could find. He sits down at the piano in the back of the dining room, dusty yet surprisingly clean in comparison to its surroundings, and places his fingers on the keys. The chords come naturally to him, and he plays the melody most familiar to him, starting softly and gaining more emotion until it fills the room. It seems to continue past its walls, a sound with no clear end. He remembers his days in this room, awaiting his _supplies_ , simply playing the piano. And even earlier, when he would practice this song until he could play it from memory as a child, with Laura guiding his hands.

Laura.

She would sit beside him on the bench, her spindly fingers laying atop his and shepherding them to the correct keys. On parts that he could not seem to grasp, she would tell him to stand, and she would play the score expertly, as if she were born for this and this only. He could only watch in awe, and she would playfully scold Ruben when he was still unable to play the keys, simply because he was too immersed in the sound of her playing.

His fingers now moved across the keys skillfully, purposefully, doing everything he could never do as a child.

"Oh, Laura," he whispers, his body following the motion of his hands up and down the piano, "how proud you would be..." He raises his head to see the presentation of the tattered memories of the room yet again, but at the sight he is met with, his fingers trip over each other, clashing together as the edge of his thumbs press down on all the wrong keys.

She's there, illuminated only by the moonlight trickling through a single window. She looks just the same as she does in his memories, watching him with a soft but protective expression. All words escape him for what seems like eternity, but she waits patiently.

"Laura...," he rasps, heavy hands weighing down the keys and letting out a low hum. "To bring you to such a wretched place..."

"I would never say my brother's mind is _wretched_. If I do not belong here, where _do_ I belong?" she asks, taking his hand in her own. It's a sensation he has no way of feeling, but seeing his burnt, blackened and peeling flesh resting in her palm is a small comfort.

Still, he considers her question. Laura belongs on a higher plane, one with no pain, one where she is loved and untouchable.

_But where is she?_

_In the ground_ , a voice in his head screams, and he feels his throat burn.

"What's the matter, Ruben?"

He knows this is not Laura, knows she has gone on - _He's trying to punish me again. He always resented our closeness. Thinks he can use it against me. Does he take me for a fool? Laura is_ not dead - to somewhere he cannot reach. The apparitions he saw were only his mind playing tricks on him _Isawherthereagain, standingattheendofthehallway. Longblackhair, beautifulasever, streakedwithmoonlight, eyesdarkpoolsinherporcelainface_ , and he had accepted her fate _sheworeherfavoritereddresslikeacrimsonsunsetlikeastreakofbloodinthewaninglight_. His mouth twitches, staring at the girl not a day over seventeen in front of him.

_Laura, of course you couldn't be dead._

His throat feels as if it is closing up. He looks at her, but he can't see her face. He sees black hair, white skin, but her face is not there.

"Ruben?"

He feels the room shake, shake like the inside of his chest as he gasps for breath, then all comes to a still as he looks down at his hands on the keys. There is no sound, no creaks of the house or wind from outside. Hesitantly, he raises his head.

_Why couldn't I have died with you?_

And she screams.

She screams just like she did in the barn. Those final screams he heard after his body had been pushed out of the window, laying uselessly on the ground. She is shrieking in an all-encompassing pain that _his sister_ should have never felt.

He watches as this figure in front of him, no longer his sister, begins to morph. _She won't stop screaming, when will she stop screaming, please stop this_ , he pleads, watching as arms burst out of her back and her skin burning from an unseen force. He falls backward off of the bench, unable to look away at the awful sight before him. The creature falls to its knees, gasping for a moment before propping itself up on its legs and arms, like an animal. It crawls forward for a moment, its legs moving in a sickening and unnatural way. Beneath its matted hair, Ruben can feel its eyes piercing into him before it drops down through the floor, leaving only a puddle of blood in its wake.

He swears he can still hear it breathing once it's left. He looks down at the hand she had held, as if she left something behind in his palm for him. The halls of his heart are stuffed with grief, anger, and every other possible emotion. As his bones shake, he watches as the floor beneath him becomes glassy with blood and plasma drips from the walls.

**Author's Note:**

> any and all feedback is greatly appreciated!


End file.
